Once upon a time there was a husband and a wife, and they went to a grand party. This husband and wife neither lacked for food and clothing, nor did they have much in the way of riches, for they both were honest workers.
At the party there was much fine food and drink, and the host offered up many splendid games. The last game of all was for a prize of wondrous worth, a diamond of exceptional size and beauty placed upon a velvet cushion. What should happen but that the husband chanced to win the game, and the diamond was brought to them.
Immediately the wife was overjoyed and kissed her husband, for she thought of how fine she would look with such a beautiful diamond set in a ring or in a necklace with her in her most beautiful clothes. Her husband was also overjoyed, for he thought of selling the diamond and paying off their lenders or of making some investment with the money.
Well, they went home that night and their joy was soon spoiled when they began to talk of what they should do with the diamond. They fell into a quarrel, and when they went to bed that night each was angry with the other, although the wife consoled herself by thinking of the diamond on her finger, and the husband consoled himself by thinking of the fat bag of coins the diamond would bring.
They quarreled again in the morning, and again the next morning after that. Soon the wife could hardly but look at the diamond without her heart rising in spite at her husband, who would deny her the first truly fine thing that had come her way all so that he could faster pay off some banker. The husband could neither look at the diamond without thinking of the waste his wife would make of their good fortune, especially since she already had several precious rings, and even an old family diamond of her own, albeit of a much smaller and duller cut.
They placed the diamond in a box and put it on a high shelf out of their sight and reach, but the thought of the fine ring and the bag full of coins gnawed inside both their hearts, and their table and bed were no longer happy as before. Both wished that the diamond had never been won, but neither could they go back to the time before it was in their house, even though they no longer even looked at the stone.
In the end, the wife relented and told her husband to sell the stone to a jeweler. He paid his debts and still had money left over, but no gift that he could make his wife would assuage her bitterness, and he also was bitter, for he knew that always she looked at her old finery with disdain and thought of the diamond that had been gained and lost.
This is actually a true story that I heard about on a Freakonomics podcast, explained there in terms of "the dangers of a windfall" in intimate relationships. You can tell this sort of story using the language of scarcity, incentive, and cost. The economic lesson seems to be that when a couple unexpectedly has the means to improve felt but previously impossible needs in an either/or scenario, it puts extreme pressure on a relationship to discover how differently each partner perceives the value of a given opportunity.
We know all about this. The hardest times in our marriage came from the best phone call I ever received. Our prize diamond led to our darkest days, and apparently that's sort of normal.
At any rate, I highly recommend the podcast. For the record, here's the diamond:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/FREAKONOMICS-CHARITY-DIAMOND-1-000ct-F-GIA-Princess-VS2-/121623148342?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c514df736
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